I moved several hundred lists from VM to Solaris last year. I used FTP
to move the files and I don't remember encountering any problems due
to EBCDIIC-ASCII translation errors.

The L-Soft license agreement provided for a migration period (90 days?)
during which we were allowed to run LISTSERV on both platforms, so our
move was done over the course of the spring semester. We set a date
after which all new lists would be created on the new server, then
started moving existing lists. Spreading the move over several weeks
reduced the number of move related questions that I had to deal with
at any one time and minimized the impact on my normal work schedule.
All list owners were notified in advance that the move was coming;
individual list owners were notified again as their lists were moved.

I set things up on VM so I could get R/O access to all LISTSERV mdisks
from another userid. That enabled me to move individual lists and their
archives while LISTSERV/VM was still running. If I recall correctly, the
process went something like this:

1. Send the final "Your list is moving" notice to the list owner.
2. Place the list on hold.
3. GET the list header file, including the subscribers.
4. Edit the list header and make any changes required for the new
   environment. In most cases, this was limited to the archive
   location in the NOTEBOOK= statement, although I also used it as
   an opportunity to review the list configuration for potential
   problems.
5. Use FTP to move the list header, list archives, and other
   list related files (welcome, farewell, etc.) to the new server. FTP
   on VM supports batch mode, which made the process much easier.
6. On the new server, create required email aliases.
7. On the new server, use the list management web page to update the
   list header. Nothing needs to be changed, simply click the "update"
   button. This will force LISTSERV to create the files required by the
   web archive interface. I am not sure whether it does anything else,
   but I did it for every list, even those without web accessible
   archives, just to be sure that LISTSERV knew the list was there.
8. On VM, edit the list header again to insert a "New-List=" statement,
   PUT the list header to LISTSERV/VM, then release the list.
9. Notify the list owner that the list has moved. I sent a message
   which the owner could forward to the list in order to notify the
   subscribers of the change.

I wrote some REXX and CMSPIPES tools to automate some portions of the
process. Our VM system has been shutdown, but I may have saved some of
my tools. If you are interested, let me know and I will see if I can
find anything.

--
Paul Russell
Senior Systems Administrator
University of Notre Dame

-------- Original Message --------
>Date:    Tue, 2 Nov 1999 17:33:27 -0500
>From:    Bill Verity <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Moving DIGEST/SUBJECTS files to new server
>
>Me again - moving from a VM to UNIX server.
>
>I'd like to move the DIGEST and SUBJECTS files when I move the list.
>Can I? Looks like the SUBJECTS file uses a HEX 15 to separate the
>subject from the rest of the data.  What is the character on Unix?
>--
>Bill Verity - 814-865-4758  Fax: 814-863-7049
>Postmaster & Listserv maintainer
>Center for Academic Computing, Penn State University
>At the office - on my Mac, of course ;-)